Certain drawer slides used in cabinets and other storage systems include both a lock-in and a lock-out feature. The lock-in feature reduces accidental opening by requiring the user to unlatch the drawer slide before opening a drawer, tray, panel, or other sliding or storage member that is engaged or attached to the drawer slide. The lock-out feature maintains the drawer in the open position and also requires the user to further unlatch the drawer slide before closing the drawer. Drawer slides having both lock-in and lock-out features are often used in emergency and commercial vehicles where it is important to maintain drawers and storage members in a closed position during transit and to further maintain the drawers or storage members in an opened position once the drawers are opened. For example, the parking of emergency and commercial vehicles on an incline could cause the inadvertent closure of a drawer that does not lock-out.
Typical drawer slides that lock-in and lock-out require both a left hand drawer slide for a left side of a cabinet and a separate right hand drawer slide for a right side of the cabinet in order for release levers of each slide to operate in the same direction, e.g., in an upwards or in a downwards direction. This requirement for separate left and right drawer-slides increases inventory, stocking costs, labor, etc.